//------------------------------// // Meet the Fox // Story: Tails of Fate // by CroisSunnyPlay //------------------------------// Tails of Fate CHAPTER TWO - MEET THE FOX ((Twilight Sparkle POV)) Everfree Forest "We're almost there, girls." I said. Earlier today, I received a letter from Princess Celestia, saying that she has been feeling a strange magical signature in the Everfree Forest, more specifically, in the old castle. In the letter, she asked that me and my friends took a look at whatever was emitting that signature. "Hey Twilight, what do you think this thing that Princess Celestia felt is?" I heard Rainbow Dash ask as she floated lazily above us. "O-oh, I just hope it's not d-dangerous..." Fluttershy whispered, hiding behind her long pink mane. "Don'cha worry yer little head, shy." Applejack assured her. "If it's dangerous, we can just give it a good ol' buck in the face... or, whatever it has." "Why always in this horrid forest?" Rarity whined. "I had just finished polishing my hooves! This better be worth of my pristine presence!" "Oh, oh! Maybe it's another one of those enchanted comics like the one Spike found!" I didn't even need to look to know that Pinkie was hoping around. "I want to be the one to open it this time!" I subconsciously smiled. I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for my friends. We have been through a lot of things together. But now isn't the time to think about the past, as we finally arrived at the bridge that lead to the castle. "Well, let's ser what's insi-" I couldn't finish my sentence as Rarity's horn started glowing brightly, almost blinding everypony. "Oh my! There must be a gem nearby! And a big one at that!" Without warning, Rarity was practically yanked toward in the direction of the castle. "WHAHAHA!!!" We all quickly followed Rarity. It was as if her horn was dragging her in the direction of the gem. It must be really big. I grimaced a little as I looked at her. That looks pretty uncomfortable. When Rarity finally stopped, we all approached her to help. "Are you okay, Rarity?" I asked. She didn't say anything as she sat there, simply facing forward, unmoving. I was already getting worried. It was then that I noticed a strange light coming from somewhere. Taking a look around, I noticed that we were in the throne room, where we fought Nightmare Moon. Looking in the direction of the light, I saw something that wasn't there before and understood why Rarity was so unresponsive. Some kind of altar was built in one of the corners of the room, in which sat six small gems of different colors surrounding a big green one. I could feel an enormous amount of magic coming from them, but for some reason, it felt... Wrong, as if it wasn't normal magic. "Simply fabulous..." I heard Rarity say. I looked at her and almost jumped out of my skin when I saw her with a smile so wide that it could rival Pinkie's. Needless to say, it was very creepy. "Uh... Rarity, I don't think it's a good idea to mess with these gems..." I nervously said. "Oh, why not, Twilight darling? Maybe this is what Princess Celestia has been feeling! Don't you want to make sure?" "Y-yeah, but-" "Wonderful! So let's take these gems with us, shall we?" She lit up her horn and enveloped the giant green gem in her telekinesis. She was about to levitate it out of the altar when a blue flash of light blinded everypony momentarily. When we all could see again, we looked in the direction of the altar, only to see a strange bipedal creature standing there, holding another one of those small gems and glaring at us before he opened his mouth and started speaking. "You better explain why you were trying to steal the Master Emerald or I'll not hesitate in destroying you." Castle of The Alicorn Sisters, Throne Room W-what kind of creature is that? Looks like a type of... Fox, or something like that. There was the fact that it is bipedal and seemed to have... Two tails? It appears to be male, his fur is a dark yellow, almost orange color, except for the area around his mouth, his chest and belly, and the tip of his tails, where the fur is white. He was wearing a pair of red shoes with white details, and on his back he seemed to be carrying what apparently were two metal poles, and... Oh my Celestia, are those red marks on his fur blood? Is he some kind of predator? My train of thought was interrupted when I looked at him again and saw that he was tapping his foot impatiently. "So? Why were you trying to steal the emerald?" Oh no, he thinks that we are thieves! I have to tell him that this is just a misunderstanding! "I'm very sorry, we weren't trying to steal your emerald, we just-" "Do I look like I was born yesterday!? Are you seriously trying to give me that bullshit of 'I wasn't stealing it'? Then what? Were you going to 'borrow' it?" He asked angrily. I snapped my muzzle shut after that. I didn't want to admit it, but we were kinda stealing now that I think about it... Rainbow Dash then proceeded to fly in his face and glare back at him. "Hey, what's your problem!? Who do you think you are to be talking about Princess Twilight Sparkle like that!?" I groaned as she put emphasis on 'princess'. I don't like to use my title like that. The fox only rose an eyebrow at Dash. "I don't care if you're a princess, a queen or whatever, I talk how I like to whoever I want. Now, I'll ask you to get off my face, or there will be a new bloodstain on my fur, and it's most definitely not going to be my blood." "Ha! You think you can beat me? I'm the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria, you stand no chance to my awesomeness!" "You seems like the type of much talk and no action. I don't have to tell you that I'm better than you. I KNOW that I am, and so, I'll let the facts talk for me." "What fa-" It happened so fast. One moment, Dash was about to ask what he meant, the next she was sprawled on the ground in front of us. Eyes wide in confusion, I looked back at the fox and him holding one of the metal poles in his right hand. When did he do that? How fast is he? The others went to help Rainbow while I tried to wrap my head around what was going on. "I suggest the rest of you take your friend and leave." He stated before turning towards the altar and mumbling something that sounded like 'I feel like Knuckles', I don't know. I sighed and looked at the rest of the girls. "C'mon, there's nothing we can do right no-" I was interrupted as Spike came running through the entrance of the throne room, looking like he had just run a marathon, which he might probably have. "Twilight, you have to come quickly there's a hydra attacking Ponyville!" He said in one breath. He didn't appear to have seen the fox in the room, but I wasn't focusing on that. "A hydra! Oh no, we have to get back, right now!" I said in a panicked tone. The others nodded and together we ran out of the castle and back to Ponyville. Had I looked back at the fox, I would have seen him looking inquisitively at us. ((Third Person)) "Why am I here..." Tails questioned himself as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop in Ponyville. Truly, he didn't know why he decided to leave the safety of his forest to go into a town full of ponies who could spot him. Coming to a stop atop the building known as town hall, he observed the hydra that was attacking. Right away he noticed a glaring detail: The hydra was obviously a robot. His frown deepened at the implications of that. "HELP!!!" His head snapped in the direction of the shout, and saw that the three fillies he had met in the forest were about to be stepped on by the hydra. Tails growled and pulled his chaos emerald from his pocket dimension. "Not on my watch... Chaos... CONTROL!!!" Disappearing and reappearing in a flash of blue light, Tails' hands shot upwards, stopping the foot of the hydra from squashing the fillies. Grunting a little from the effort, Tails pushed the hydra back a few feet. "Hey girls, are you oka- oof!" He started to say but was interrupted by a triple tackle-hug from the fillies, driving the air out of his lungs. "Mister Fox! You came to save us!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed in her squeaky voice. "Girls, I need air..." Tails gasped as the hug the fillies were giving him was more akin to being strangled. The girls blinked before gasping and releasing Tails, a sheepish look on their faces. "Sorry, Mister Fox..." They said in unison. Had Tails witnessed something like this when he first arrived in Equestria, he would have died of cuteness induced diabetes. But surprisingly, after so long he had developed a sort of immunity to it. His frown softening a little, he sighed. "It's okay, girls. And please, stop with the 'Mister' thing, it makes me feel old. Call me Tails." "Okay, Mister Tails!" Tails face-palmed before looking up as someone shouted at him. "Hey, it's you again!" Looking to his side, he saw the six ponies who were trying to take the Master Emerald. The blue pegasus was the one who shouted. "What do you want?" Tails questioned, crossing his arms. "How did you get there so fast?" It was Twilight who asked. Tails decided to humour her with an answer this time and pulled the blue Chaos Emerald from his pocket dimension (that is behind his back, right above his tails for some reason. Sonic logic, maybe.) and showed her. Twilight analyzed the Emerald but Tails attention wasn't at her. He looked in surprise at the Emerald, feeling it resonating with something. Focusing in it, he was once again surprised when he discovered that the Emerald was interacting with the three fillies that were standing beside him. "Interesting.../Fascinating..." Tails and Twilight said at the same time. Raising an eyebrow at each other, Twilight went to talk but Tails interrupted her. "It's not important right now. We have literally bigger problems in our hands." He walked past the ponies and stood in front of the robot hydra and shouted. "I know you can hear me! What are your intentions here!?" Everypony was surprised when a monitor floated in front of the hydra and a malicious laugh was heard as the image of a fat man appeared on it. "Hahahaha, you got me, alright. But in my opinion you should know the answer!" Tails frowned as he knew exactly what he meant. "It was on purpose... You ordered the hydra to attack the town so I would come out of the forest! Away from the Master Emerald!" The man on the screen laughed again. "You heroes are so easy to fool! Just put an innocent on the line of danger and you come running to help. As we speak, my robots are already bringing the Master Emerald here to Canterlot, where I shall begin my plans to conquer this new world!" "How are you even here?" Tails asked, not taking his eyes from the robot hydra behind the monitor. "Hehehehe, the same way as you, my friend. I was displaced. Me and a few others to help on my cause. You have no hope of stopping me, I'm not like the Eggman from the games. I have more knowledge than he could ever hope to!" Tails rose an eyebrow at the monitor. "And yet you use the same designs as him. I'm betting that you even have built a Metal Sonic to help you. But it won't matter, I'll stop you one way or another!" Eggman chuckled one more time as the screen went dark, only his voice coming through. "I want to see you try. Egg Hydra, destroy him!" Ponyville Square Zone Vs Boss Egg Hydra As the fight started, Tails immediately noticed some things on his field of vision. One the upper part he could see two bars, one blue completely filled and one red that was slowly filling as the time passed. A timer was in between the two bars, already running. On the bottom left corner he could see a ring counter while on the right there was a image of his poles with something written bellow them: Gear Change. 'Figures that I would have something similar to Shadow's game screen with the personality I have...' Tails thought to himself as he turned his attention back to the robot and saw some rings spread around it. He decided to collect as many rings as he could, so, he dashed around the robot doing just that before one of the hydra's heads came down on him, forcing him to evade. The other heads also came at him, and he managed to dodge the second and the third head, but the fourth caught him completely off guard, knocking him back a few feet and making him lose all the rings he collected. Tails grunted as he got back to his feet, only to be hit by a fireball from the hydra, sending him some more feet away. "Note to self, getting hit with no rings by a giant robot hurts like hell..." Tails muttered as he stood up and dashed around collecting the rest of the rings before focusing on the robot. This time he managed to evade all the heads and send the fireball back at the robot with a precise swing of his poles. When the fireball hit the hydra, Tails noticed that the energy core became exposed, but only for some seconds. "He even makes the same errors with his designs." Tails observed, shaking his head. "But maybe that will help me destroy that robot completely..." Looking at the bars on top of his vision, Tails saw that the red bar had filled completely, so he went back to the fight. The pattern of the attacks had changed slightly as each head now attacked two times. Finally, when the hydra launched the fireball and Tails sent it back, he dashed towards the robot and jumped right at it. "Chaos..." Tails' entire body began to glow with a red light. "BLAST!!!" A massive explosion shook the town square as Tails and the robot were enveloped by a bright flash, and when it died down, Tails stood besides a smoking pile of what was left of the robot. "Hmph, piece of scrap metal..." Mission Clear Experience=> Rings collected X 10 20 Rings = 200 exp. Exp. needed to next level: 150 Level Up! Tails learned: Chaos spear Exp. Needed to next level: 450 Current Exp. 200 Current Level: 2 Tails was slightly surprised by his leveling system, but decided to not question it. He distractedly noticed some ponies cheering that the threat to the town was stopped, but didn't care as he made his way back to the group of six ponies and three fillies that were looking at him with varied expressions, ranging from shock and awe, to fear in Fluttershy's case. Twilight was the first to recover. "How did you do all that!?" She almost yelled at Tails face, who unfazed by that, walked past her and knelt down in front of the fillies. "Girls, can you show me where the train station is?" The three nodded energetically and started pushing him in the right direction. Tails grumbled a little at first but let them guide him as the rest of the mane six shook out of their stupor and followed them. On their way to the train station, Tails kept being thanked by the townsfolk for saving them. To not appear rude, he nodded to them, but said nothing. Not long after, they arrived at the train station, which was deserted, most likely because the ponies that worked here fled when they heard the hydra attacking. Tails also kept ignoring any questions the main six asked, but answered those of the fillies. The six were getting aggravated by Tails attitude, but when Rainbow Dash finally had enough and asked what was his problem, his answer had made all of them go quiet. "I don't trust any of you six. In my eyes, you're still thieves who tried to steal the Master Emerald." He then looked at the train tracks before turning his attention back to the three fillies. "So if I follow this tracks I'll arrive in Canterlot?" "Yep, ya can't miss it." AppleBloom answered. "Okay then." Tails then stood besides the tracks and started stretching. Rainbow Dash, having noticed what he was doing, chuckled. "Are you planning on running there? Haha, you're never going to arrive in-" She was interrupted as Tails took off running at high speed, leaving six ponies speechless and three fillies more awed than before. Back with Tails, he spotted some single train carts in the distance. 'Probably Eggman's robots' He had to do something. He wouldn't let Eggman take this world. He looked up as he heard a thunder. Looks like a storm was coming. He had a strange feeling on his mind, like something was going to happen in Canterlot, something that would change him. But another thing kept nagging at Tails mind. What did Eggman mean by 'displaced'? ⚠ Warning ⚠ These decisions affect the path of the story. Please choose only one: Neutral Mission Hero Mission Dark Mission